Since YoYo Games was acquired by Swedish web-browser company Opera, back in January 2021, the company seems to have gone into overdrive. New tutorials and a new focus on early-stage developers, point to a business that has realised that many more people around the world would love to make their own games – if only they knew how, or had access to the technology.
YoYo has now addressed the last of those issues, with the news that GameMaker Studio is now entirely free-to-play. Instead of a free trial period, which is a little bit shareware, game creators can now download and play with GMS to their hearts content. Only at the point of exprting to one of the (many) platforms support by GameMaker, will they need to purchase a license.
This puts GameMaker Studio right alongside the other key engines used within the industry, such as Unreal and Unity, which also enable users to download and learn how to use them without demands for cash up front.
Going Global Gamewise
With a growing number of indie titles now being powered by GameMaker (Undertale, Hyper Light Drifter, Levelhead, etc), an engaged and active community of creators around the world, a growing number of schools, colleges and universities now using GMS and a well-stocked marketplace full of assets, it’s clear that GMS is a serious contender in the global games market.
Emerging game creators can also now access a wealth of high-quality demos and tutorials for free, created specifically to introduce new users to the fundamentals of game design and get up to speed with the basics of GameMaker – fast. These include the recently released Little Town tutorial designed by award-winning developer Benjamin Rivers, and Fire Jump, designed by YoYo’s own in-house development team.
Stuart Poole, General Manager at YoYo Games, said:
Our vision has always been to try and make it as easy as possible for anyone to make their own awesome games and today’s announcement represents a major milestone in the realisation of that vision. By making GameMaker free for everyone, we’re removing a major barrier so that anyone can try game making for the first time and start to unleash their inner creativity without any time limits.
Krystian Kolondra, Executive Vice President, PC & Gaming at Opera, added:
We’ve already seen the gradual lowering of technical hurdles resulting in the democratization of both content publishing, through platforms like WordPress, and video creation through channels Vimeo and YouTube. Making games is fast becoming the next step in the creator economy and by making GameMaker free for everyone, we believe that creating games will soon become a popular part of everyday life for many people.
You can find and download GameMaker Studio 2, appreciate the showcase of awesome games, engage with the active community, browse the shelves of the Marketplace and learn more about game design and development by visiting the YoYo Games website.